British natural gas producer BG Group PLC yesterday raised its bid to buy Australia’s Origin Energy Ltd, the country’s second-largest power company, to A$13.8 billion (US$13 billion).
BG Group’s hostile takeover attempt follows a bid last month that was initially endorsed by Origin’s board, but later rejected after a separate deal in the industry caused Origin executives to rethink the company’s value.
BG Group said in a filing yesterday with the Australian Securities Exchange that it was offering A$15.50 per share for Origin, for a total of A$13.8 billion. That’s 5.4 percent more than the A$14.70 BG Group offered in its initial bid.
BG Group said that the offer represented a 48 percent cash premium on Origin’s closing price of A$10.47 on April 29, just before it announced its first offer.
“Recent transactions, analyzed on a comparable basis, confirm that BG Group’s offer provides full value to Origin’s shareholders,” CEO Frank Chapman said.
“It doesn’t need an increase in price — it is a good offer as it stands,” Chapman said.
Origin issued a statement after the new bid that advised shareholders to “take no action at this stage.” Its shares rose more than 5 percent to A$16.36 in trading yesterday.
Origin’s board last month endorsed BG Group’s initial offer, but then changed tack and declined to put the offer before shareholders after news broke of a deal between Malaysia’s national oil company, Petroliam Nasional Bhd or Petronas, and Australian oil and gas producer Santos Ltd.
The A$2.6 billion Petronas-Santos partnership to build a liquefied natural gas plant using coal seam gas set a new benchmark for valuing those resources, analysts said.
At the time, Origin managing director Grant King said the company’s coal seam gas assets made the company far more valuable than the price being offered by BG Group.
BG Group said yesterday that the Santos-Petronas deal was not a relevant price benchmark for Origin’s coal seam gas reserves.
BG Group’s offer is based on a minimum acceptance condition of 50.1 percent.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS